An ambitious one-woman musical directed by and starring Tara Tedjarati, A Fire Ignites tells the story of a teenage girl called Parisa who publicly burns her hijab during the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran. We learn about her love for her best friend and how this both motivates her to fight and makes her wish she didn’t have to, and we also hear the perspectives of her friends and family.

While A Fire Ignites touches on a lot of issues facing Iranian women, particularly queer Iranian women, it lacks the runtime to really delve into any of these. Instead, it feels more like a checklist of passionately delivered talking points. Similarly, the choice to turn the show into a musical seems ill-advised when there is time for only one song and one dance sequence, both of which feel amateurish. Tedjarati is a talented actress, but her singing voice struggles to carry a big ballad. The show is not without merit. The use of orange ribbon to symbolise the burning of Parisa’s hijab is very clever, and the script is fairly well-written, but A Fire Ignites ultimately fails to live up to its big themes.

A Fire Ignites, theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall, until 24 August, 9.35am.